Explanation Unnecessary...

... this is our reality...

I want something else for my children and the planet...

What Do You Want?

This Is Where The Slavery Starts...

Brainwashed to obey...

Is this what we want for our children and the future?

I don't...

The Story Of Your Enslavement...

We need a new paradigm - this one isn't working and it ain't gonna get better!

I Do Not Want To Be An Emperor...

Maybe the Senator from Vermont talked with Charlie Chaplin...

It's Hard To Argue Against What He Says....

Telling it like it is:

Sounds of Truth...

From Pete Seeger:

Lyrics:

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes, little boxes
Little boxes all the same

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they all were put in boxes, little boxes all the same
And there's doctors and there's lawyers and business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martini dry
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they all got put in boxes, and they all came out the same

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same
There's a green one, and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same...

 

Lyrics:

Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the flowers gone,
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone,
Young girls picked them every one
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn

Where have all the young girls gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the young girls gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the young girls gone,
gone to young men every one
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn

Where have all the young men gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the young men gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the young men gone,
gone to soldiers every one,
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn

Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the soldiers gone,
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn

Where have all the graveyards gone,
Long time passing,
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Long time ago,
Where have all the graveyards gone,
Gone to flowers every one
When will they ever learn
When will they ever learn

 

Lyrics:

Come all of you good workers,

Good news to you I'll tell,

Of how that good old union

Has come in here to dwell.

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner,

And I'm a miner's son,

And I'll stick with the union,

Till every battle's won.

They say in Harlan County,

There are no neutrals there.

You'll either be a union man,

Or a thug for J.H. Blair.

Oh, workers can you stand it?

Oh, tell me how you can.

Will you be a lousy scab,

Or will you be a man ?

Don't scab for the bosses,

Don't listen to their lies.

Us poor folks haven't got a chance,

Unless we organize.

 

Lyrics:

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
 

I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody's free.
And that's what the teacher said to me.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
 

I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
 

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
 

I learned our government must be strong.
It's always right and never wrong.
Our leaders are the finest men.
And we elect them again and again.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
 

What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
 

I learned that war is not so bad.
I learned of the great ones we have had.
We fought in Germany and in France.
And some day I might get my chance.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

 

Lyrics:

We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day.

Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.

We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand, some day.

Oh, deep in my heart,

We shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace, some day.

Oh, deep in my heart,

We shall all be free,
We shall all be free,
We shall all be free, some day.

Oh, deep in my heart,

We are not afraid,
We are not afraid,
We are not afraid, TODAY

Oh, deep in my heart,

We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, some day.

Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day.

For the sake of the planet - our mother, Gaia -  and all who live on her, I hope so... 

What The World Needs Now...

What the world needs now, is love, sweet love, said Tom Clay in 1971 in his remix of the 1965 song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach...

40 years later and nothing has changed... 

State of the Nation: Insanity Rules...

According to the US Census Bureau, as of July 2009 the US population stood at 307,006,550 people.

Wikipedia says the US population numbers 310,722,000.

It's generally accepted that the true unemployed/underemployed rate is running as high as 25%...

That means there are approximately 77,500,000 people in this country who are out of work, or not working sufficiently to meet their needs, or who have given up looking for work.

77 MILLION people (and their partners, families, communities) losing, or in danger of losing, their homes, not having enough food, without medical care, no transport... millions of children living with day-to-day survival issues...

Food insecurity in the U.S. hovering at record levels

 

Just to give you a sense of the enormity of that number - that's the population of 3.5 New Zealands, or one-and-a-bit United Kingdoms, or two Kenyas...     

Countries by Population

In the richest country on the planet... and that's why we need to keep giving tax cuts to the rich and not fund education and health care fully... 

Make sense to you???   No, not to me either...

Summing It All Up In 2min:40sec

One version of current reality...

This is all being done in our names - and apparently we all agreed to this...

I don't remember anyone asking me if I wanted this... did anyone ask you?

And here is the reality for those on the ground:

And I kinda feel I have earned the right to post pacifist comments.   I really understand the issue.   I spent 18 years as a military wife, watching grown men get excited about spending taxpayer money on more elaborate, efficient tools and machines for killing people, and my elder son is serving in the New Zealand Army...

Beware the Righteous Anger of Youth

Here's what some kids in New Mexico think about where education is taking them... 

We adults should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing this to be done to our children...

 

 

 

First, Do No Harm....

My spiritual practice is based on the tenet: First,  Do No Harm and John Wesley said:
 

"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can."

~John Wesley (1703 –1791) Church of England cleric & theologian, Methodist movement founder
 

Does education, and education "deform", first "do no harm"?

I have been thinking about that more and more, since I wrote the letter to my child's teacher, principal and school community, withdrawing him from standardised testing and relieving them of any responsibility and liability for his academic achievement.

As the weeks have gone by, and I've processed the 100% positive feedback I have received on the stand I am taking, and I look at my son as we go to school everyday, I wonder - withdrawing him from testing - is that enough?

There are so many ways in which we don't honour our children as free human beings, and it seems to me the worst is yet to come - in some respects we are going back in time to much darker, almost feudal days...

Merit Pay Turns Children Into Workers

In many ways, I share some of Alfie Kohn's thoughts on education. 

Learning is a lifelong activity – it doesn’t just happen in the time period between 5 – 17 years of age, within the confines of school walls.   I don’t think the purpose of educating for life is to learn academics...  I think the purpose is to turn out a well rounded, balanced, confident, happy, fulfilled individual - physically, intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually and to develop all the talents you were born with, not just the intellect, so that you can contribute the best of yourself to your community...

But School = Prison for many kids, something they have to do, that they don’t have a say in...

Do any of us think abut how we would feel if someone came up to us and said:

“For the next 13 years or so, you will do this for five days of the week, whether you like it or not... You don’t get any say in how you spend the day or who you spend it with... 

You will stand when we say so, sit when we say so, talk when we say so, write when we say so, read when we say so, eat when we say so, exercise when we say so, do art (if you're lucky) when we say so... 

You will spend at least five hours of your day in this fashion and you may - if we choose - have up to one hour to be somewhat free and unrestrained - but even then, if you don’t obey us and do exactly as we instruct, in the manner we instruct, you will have that free time rescinded...”

And kids are supposed to believe this is all in their best interests, that the pay-off  (good job, a safe place in society, relationships, happiness, a house - and a mortgage to go with your student debt - and a generous retirement  before slipping into the night-time of death) is worth it and there is something wrong with them if they can’t or won’t conform, or enjoy it, or do their best …

I see the current model as a confining, controlling one of indoctrination into/moulding for the system and it physically hurts me inside (a twisting of the gut) to see my son being changed/restricted every day... 

So, each day I am dithering about his continued participation in formal schooling....

I want freedom for him - freedom for us all... But is that my projection, coming from deep within, my own rejection of, revolt against the dynamic of power and control...   

And am I gambling with his future if I take him out and let him 'educate', ‘unschool’ himself in something like a Sudbury model school, or even at home... (Or am I just preparing him for a different world, one that will come when this system finally collapses, as it surely will?)...

And I wonder, if that is how it is for me, how must it be for teachers who are being forced by their masters to put children through what most of them must know is not real 'education'?   I wonder how they stand there day after day jumping through the hoops a sick society is putting in front of them?

And that is not a criticism - truly... I know that place; I have been in a place where I was asked/expected to do things that I knew intellectually, morally, spiritually were not "for the highest good".   I couldn’t justify it, couldn’t find a good enough reason worth the pay-off and I had to lay it all on the line to stay in personal integrity... 

I am guessing many teachers face that dilemma daily...

My son's teacher is a fine teacher, who is used to mustering and employing all her talents (artistic, dramatic, musical) in the business of teaching her class whether that be in math, language arts, whatever...

But she is being compelled by her principal and the district to teach to the test, in content and form - worksheets, worksheets and more worksheets, formatted exactly as kids will find them on the tests including multiple choice answers with bubbles to fill in...  

It's killing her - the internal conflict and stress is literally making her sick... 

And it's killing me to see my son struggle with boredom in that...

It’s turning him off - now he says “school is boring, math is boring, too much sitting, too much writing, it’s too hard, I don’t get enough time to just read (currently his completely favourite activity), there’s not enough time to eat lunch, recess is too short”...

My son is not unique - this is happening to hundreds of thousands of kids - we are killing their spirit/creativity/curiosity/enthusiasm... I think that's a crime - which is why I do what I do against education deform...

But stopping education deform is not enough;   what was happening in classrooms before education deform wasn’t good either.   

If I know the system is broken and I don’t agree with the values of the system, and the system won't let me change it (but will let others with money change it as they see fit, in ways that I think will harm all children), what do I, as a parent, do?   

What does a teacher do?

I want to know what we as a people do, when the system is so broken it can’t be fixed?  

How do we get our world to a place where we really nurture/educate our children in a holistic way…

Do you do the best you can within the bad system, or create something outside the system?

The System - Servant or Master?

I feel sad/mad/disappointed/frustrated that so many people forget that a system - any system - only exists because people support/enable/buy into it... You take away your support and participation, and the system crumbles.... 

And yes, that's not as easy as it sounds - there's a lot at stake for most people.   But surely the day comes when one has to make a choice, if one wants to stay in personal integrity?

That's why I do what I do - the system has ceased to be a servant of the people; on the contrary, its our master and we are now its slaves... 

That's inhuman and inhumane and I don't want that kind of future for our children...   Do you?

Depeche Mode had this to say about the Master-Servant relationship:

LYRICS:

It's a lot
It's a lot
Like life

There's a new game
We like to play you see
A game with added reality
You treat me like a dog
Get me down on my knees

We call it master and servant
We call it master and servant

It's a lot like life
This play between the sheets
With you on top and me underneath
Forget all about equality

Let's play master and servant
Let's play master and servant

It's a lot like life
And thats what's appealing
If you despise that throwaway feeling
From disposable fun
Then this is the one

Domination's the name of the game
In bed or in life
They're both just the same
Except in one you're fulfilled
At the end of the day

Let's play master and servant
Let's play master and servant

Let's play master and servant
Come on master and servant

And You Thought You Were Keeping Your Teeth Healthy & Strong!

 

 

We've all been told that flouridation of our water is the best way to preserve our dental health...

But when you stop and think about it, how could putting any toxic substance into your body be good for you?

Worse still, how could putting such poisons into our babies and children be good for them and their growing brains, bones, organs?

Doesn't make sense.... unless there's something else going on....

 

 

 

What Are Your Limits?

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.” 

-   Frederick Douglass

Does Subservience Protect Us From Injustice? World Affairs Journal, Egyptian Case Study 

"There is a true story from the early 20th century that is told by the great writer Ahmed Amin in his excellent book “A Dictionary of Egyptian Customs and Traditions.” A peasant laborer acquired a vast fortune and bought a large boat, called a dahabia. He bought smart and expensive clothes and sat in his dahabia as it glided across the water. The man who owned the land he worked on, an arrogant and cruel-hearted man, saw him and ordered his workers to storm the dahabia and arrest the peasant. The peasant begged for forgiveness, swearing he would never sail the dahabia again if the landowner thought he had done wrong. The landowner accepted his apology, but then gave orders to his servants, who tied the peasant up and dragged him along he ground until his new clothes were covered with mud and ripped to shreds. Then they started to beat him until his knees, his feet, and his back were bleeding. 

 

To my mind, this story reflects a widespread pattern for the relationship between the despot and his victims. 

 

I remember this lesson when I follow what is happening in Egypt. Generations of Egyptians have grown up in the firm belief that submitting to injustice is wise, and that kowtowing to those in power is the best way to protect oneself from harm. Egyptians have long believed that objecting to the authoritarian system is sheer folly and will never change things for the better, and that those who resist injustice will be detained, tortured, and even killed. Egyptians have believed that coexistence with the authoritarian regime will save them from the harm it can inflict, trusting that the vast apparatus of repression which the state possesses only goes into action to crush those who stand in its way.

But now, perhaps for the first time in decades, Egyptians are waking up to the fact that submission, failing to speak out for justice, and being obsequious towards oppressors will not prevent injustice, but often add to it. Khaled Mohamed Said, the young man who was killed in Alexandria last month, was no political activist and did not belong to any movement aimed to change the regime; in fact he may never in his life have taken part in any demonstration. He was a completely peaceful young Egyptian, dreaming like millions of Egyptians of escaping by any possible means from his oppressive homeland. He was waiting to obtain a U.S. passport like his brothers, so that he could leave Egypt forever. 

 

On the evening of his death, he went to an Internet cafe to pass the time, again like millions of others. He committed no crime and broke no law, but as soon as he went into the cafe two plainclothes policemen pounced on him and without a word started beating him brutally. They banged his head on the edge of the marble table with all their might, dragged him out of the cafe and took him into a nearby building, where they continued to beat him and banged his head against the iron gate of the building until their purpose was fulfilled. Khaled's skull was smashed and he died in front of them. 

 

Regardless of the real reason behind this brutal murder, and regardless also of the successive statements issued by the Ministry of the Interior to justify the crime, all of which have turned out to be untrue, the clear meaning of this murder is that submission is no longer enough to protect Egyptians from repression. Khaled Said was beaten in the same way as young people demonstrating for freedom. Repression in Egypt no longer distinguishes between demonstrators and ordinary people, sitting in cafes and sleeping at home. The brutal murder of Khaled Said and the fact that the killers have escaped punishment plainly indicate that any police officer or any plainclothes detective can kill whomever he wants, and the apparatus of despotism will step in at once to exonerate the killer..." 

 

What will you risk for freedom?    Look around you - your freedoms are being taken away, one by one, day by day.   We are all economic and social slaves.   For how long will you just quietly submit?

Did the Cat Eat the Canary?

If You Repeat a Lie Often Enough....

Is this really what our world has come to?

Politics, power and control?

George Carlin - Bitter Old Cynic or Fearless Truth Teller?

George Carlin's ‘Final Words to the World’: ”It’s called the American Dream because you would have to be asleep to believe it”...

Can you really say he's wrong about all this?   I can't, though I wish desperately that I could...

Despicable & Grotesque Brainwashing of Our Most Precious Treasure & Resource: War Games Lure Recruits For 'Real Thing'

"A controversial Army Experience Center in a northeast Philadelphia shopping mall will soon close its doors after a two-year pilot program. With regard to its military outreach efforts, the multimillion-dollar facility has declared "mission accomplished," but opponents question the Army's version of reality...

...At the center, teenage boys sit in a row of Army-green recliners facing flat-screen monitors. They square off in video war games like the popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Once visitors register and prove they're 13 years or older, they're given free access to the facility's array of war-themed games...

...John Gallato, 18, and three of his 15-year-old friends sit atop the Army vehicle eagerly waiting for their mission to begin. With a lifelike machine gun in hand, Gallato says experiences like this will help prepare him for the future.

"I'm going to be killing people," he says. "I'm actually joining the Marines and will be doing this in real life."

When they get the green light, the four teens begin maneuvering through virtual war zones and shooting at targets while dodging bullets themselves.

These simulated war experiences have met with strong opposition. Combat veteran Staff Sgt. Jesse Hamilton says the Army has sanitized the horrors of combat.

"The heat, people screaming, blood, flies, horrible smells, smoke in your eyes stinging, sand — the list goes on and on — and they've taken all of that out," he says. "What they've effectively left is what they consider to be the 'fun' part."

Demonstrators have voiced opposition to the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia throughout the two years the pilot program has been operating.

Kathy Leary, of the BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, says war is not a game. "We've heard kids come out of the Army Experience Center saying, 'They're really showing me what war is really like' — and obviously that's not what war is really like. There's no reset button in war." 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128875936&sc=fb&cc=fp

As a former military wife of 18 years and the mother of a son currently serving in the New Zealand Army who spent six months in Afghanistan recently, I think I have the right to say this completely sucks... 

We need to be moving towards educating for peace, not brainwashing our young people to prepare them to go and kill in any country's name...

The Occupation of U.S. Public Schools: Kids as Cannon Fodder & Consumers

 

"In November of 2009, 90 retired U.S. military leaders, including former NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark, 2 former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and 6 other 4-star generals and admirals, announced their plans to cultivate another demographic to fight future imperial wars — pre-schoolers. According to Rear Admiral Barnett, “Our national security in the year 2030 is absolutely dependent on what’s going on in pre-kindergarten today.”

Major press throughout the country printed the story, echoing the concern that so many 17-24 year olds are unfit for military service today and that in the future it could mean “a limited pool (of potential recruits) will hold back our military readiness and erode our national security in the long run.” 

 

Although it may be surprising that they are targeting tots, it’s probably not surprising that high-ranking retired military men have an interest in raising cannon fodder for the future and passing on the lethal legacy associated with their careers. But what may come as a surprise is that they are already well on their way with the aid of the Obama administration and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as congress, in pursuing an aggressive agenda, spearheaded by the Pentagon and corporate business interests, to alter the entire U.S. public education system.

 
To this end, Mission Readiness promoted the Early Learning Challenge Fund. It was included in the Zero-to-Five Initiative (that’s “zero to five” years of age) of President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Request. Congress was lobbied for support state-by-state and the House of Representatives passed the initiative in the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act last September; it currently awaits passage in the Senate. The money is not for actual program. The strategy is to shift who has control of public education beginning with children in the tender years and continuing through high school.

 

The Early Learning Challenge Fund is only one of a number of grant programs designed to “reform” the nation’s education system by militarizing and privatizing it. The so-called “education reform” movement was initiated by practitioners of a new form of private giving called “venture philanthropy,” which regards public schools as free-market terrain in which to exercise its own ideologies and agendas, away from the purview of public accountability and without cumbersome educator, local community, and school board input (the “reform” movement pushes for giving city mayors, rather than school boards, oversight for schools—although it will involve itself in school board campaigns when it isn’t possible).

 

Kenneth Saltman, Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Foundations in Education at DePaul University, stated: “Within this corporatized view of educational leadership found in venture philanthropy, military leadership is celebrated for its alleged link with corporate management—a focus on discipline, order and enforcement of mandates through a hierarchy at every level of public schooling.” (Kenneth J. Saltman and David Gabbard, Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools, New York: Routledge 2003.)

  

Saltman calls the militarization of public schools with its focus on urban and predominantly African-American and Latino student bodies, “a ‘profoundly racialized phenomenon’” in that “these students are framed as suffering primarily from a lack of discipline which the military and corporation can supply.” 

 

Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad, who made a fortune through residential home building, and the insurance and financial products corporations SunAmerica and AIG, is regarded as the foremost practitioner of venture philanthropy in education reform. He created the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems to carry out its agendas—placing corporate executives and military officers who are not educators—in charge of public school administrations, and indoctrinating administers who are already in the school system into its methods nationwide.

 

By 2010, graduates from the Broad Superintendents Academy held 68 superintendent positions and 88 senior school district executive positions across the country. Last year, 43 percent of all large urban school districts that conducted external searches for new superintendents filled their positions with graduates of the academy.

 

It isn’t any wonder then that the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which operates these programs on school reform, sees things moving in the direction it desires. Its 2009/2010 report states: “The election of President Barack Obama and his appointment of Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as the U.S. Secretary of Education marked the pinnacle of hope for our work in education reform. In many ways, we feel the stars have finally aligned. With an agenda that echoes our decade of investments—charter schools, performance pay for teachers, accountability, expanded learning time and national standards—the Obama administration is poised to cultivate and bring to fruition the seeds we and other reformers have planted.” 

 

Military infiltration and control of public schools figure prominently in this scenario. Of the 14 members of the Broad Superintendent Class of 2010, (They keep their current jobs and attend “class” training for ten months at specific times throughout the year.) four are high-ranking military: the former Chief of Operations, NATO Afghan Operations; the Director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis for the United States Military Academy; the Commanding General of the United States Army Human Resources Command; and the Director of the Human Performance Resource Center for the United States Army. The class of 2009 included the Commanding General of 10th Mountain Division and Joint Task Force of 25,000 U.S. military in Afghanistan.

 

 

The education “reform” movement has so permeated our national culture that it now forms the framework of discussions about education—often in glowing terms. Both the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minneapolis’s Star Tribune referred to the selection of the new St. Paul School Superintendent for training at what they call the “prestigious” Broad Supervisor’s Academy. Although the new superintendent is an educator qualified for other reasons, the Pioneer Press called her experience at the Broad school “something the School Board could hardly overlook when they were choosing candidates.” 

 

Several top officials in New York City’s Department of Education were trained at the Broad program but a chemistry teacher complains, “My district can’t provide working heat, light, or running water for my under-equipped lab, but we pay hundreds of thousands to the consulting businesses he (Eli Broad) promotes.” She goes on to state: “The real drive behind his manipulations is the marketing plan for the useless ‘services’ and products provided (at public expense) for his for-profit entrepreneurial ‘partners.’ Edubusiness entrepreneurs hide under a layer of fake nonprofits set by ‘philanthropists’ like Broad and Gates.” (Gotham Schools at http://gothamschools.org)"...  from: http://www.worldwidewamm.org/newsletters/2010/0310/fodder.html

 
If this doesn't have you in complete outrage about what's going on in the US and in education, what will?

 

And if you do find this morally indefensible, what are you going to do about it?